Renault apologises to managers wrongly sacked for spying

PARIS (AFP) – Renault publicly apologised on Monday to three top managers it fired for allegedly selling key electric car secrets to China after it emerged the French automaker may have been the victim of fraud.

Boss Carlos Ghosn went on prime time television to apologise "personally and in Renault's name", but said he had turned down an offer by his number two, operations chief Patrick Pelata, to resign over the debacle.

Renault officials quickly sacked the three managers in January, saying publicly they had proof they had been selling secrets on the electric technology which is expected to change the car industry.

The French government had branded the affair "economic warfare" and some pointed the finger at China, drawing an angry denial from Beijing.

Ghosn and Pelata said in a statement they would meet with the managers concerned as soon as possible and "make reparations" after revelations that the source of information alleging the spying may have been a fraudster.

Good for the company to admit the mistake publicly.

I wish I could suspect that the goodness of their hearts led them to do so. Not only the board has a legal obligation to right the wrongly accused, but it must do so also for the sake of employees and shareholders, who lost money because of the false accusation.

Like you I am happy, of course, that the wrongly accused are vindicated.

That's what anti-corporate hysteria and witch hunt against the "rich" CEOs look like up close: ruined lives and savings of millions of hard-working people that own the company.

What on earth are you talking about? There's no "anti corporate hysteria" or witch hunt against CEOs in this story. Renault apparently got conned by one of their own employees, who told them that he could prove they'd been the victims of Chinese corporate espionage. If anything, the story is about anti-Chinese paranoia leading Renault to act on unsupported accusations.

What on earth are you talking about? There's no "anti corporate hysteria" or witch hunt against CEOs in this story.

You must have missed all those newspaper articles and threads on this forum that blame Wall Street for the housing crisis, bonuses that tempted CEOs to "screw the American people," taxpayer bailout of "Goldman's betting on derivatives" and the rest of the nonsense.

I am very happy for you that you missed all that. Please tell me where you live -- I'd like to move there.

What on earth are you talking about? There's no "anti corporate hysteria" or witch hunt against CEOs in this story.

You are absolutely correct, of course. The point I was making is that the fraudster would not be so quickly believed if the same thing happened just a month before the crisis. The governments and corporate boards must now run over themselves to prove to the "common people" that they are not covering up for the "CEO crooks."

Go ahead: post something on this board that has words Goldman Sacks --- does not matter what; and then step back and see the sparks fly. This is not a good time for justice and fairness.

What I want to know is how, in your mind, any of that relates to this story about a French company being suckered by a con man into not only paying for false information about corporate espionage, but firing three of its employees for a crime that never occurred.

I am not suggesting that the company would not be suckered by a good conman at other times; these things happen from time to time everywhere. I do think, however, that in a different climate the company would not be suckered in so easily, perhaps, and would not react against the accused so quickly. In the present clime, it must do so or risk being accused by the "masses" of covering up for the "rich."

I may have given examples relevant to our country, but the climat is no better in Europe and, in some instances, even worse. According to them, all of the calamities in the world stem from capitalism (the French use the euphemism "Anglo-Saxon model") and the disparity of wealth. Read an article published just today about a proposed measure to take away 2B euros of bank bonuses in Britain --- and contracts and the rule of law be d-mned. It's an open season on "bankers," "financiers," the "rich," CEOs (in Europe they tend to use, even in English translations, the word "managers" instead of "business leaders"), etc. Almost anything you say against the top management of a company will be easily believed in the present-day climate, all the more so if the company is a financial institution.

I believe that this climate contributed to the ease with which the conman has achieved his objective. At the same time, I am simply delighted to see that the rule of law and sanity have eventually prevailed.

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